


Lullaby for a Stormy Night

by sparxwrites



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Childhood, Colony!America, Comfort, Family, Gen, Pirate England, Storms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-19
Updated: 2012-07-19
Packaged: 2017-11-10 06:38:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/463315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparxwrites/pseuds/sparxwrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>England was never afraid of thunderstorms - but he wishes someone had been there to hold him when they'd happened, even so. He's not going to let America feel the same way growing up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lullaby for a Stormy Night

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a song of the same name by Vienna Teng, and written to accompany a piece of fanart I drew (can be found on my deviantart).

He’d never been scared of thunderstorms as a child. In fact, he’d rather liked them – his brothers and France held an intense dislike for them, so they were an escape. He would be the only one out in the rain and roaring winds, shivering beneath his green cloak and laughing madly into the sky as he felt the bright energy of each lightning strike echo through him and the damp, spindly plants wrapped miserable tendrils around him and hungrily drew that glowing power into themselves. Out there, in the noise so loud it was almost the same thing as silence, he was alone and free, accompanied only by the fae and Mother Nature herself.

As he’d grown older, stronger (not quite strong enough to escape from the hated Francis, not quite strong enough to protect himself from his brothers, but nearly, _nearly_ ), he’d started calling up thunderstorms, drawing droplets of moisture upwards and knitting the clouds together, jump-starting the winds and granting his creation the spark of life required for that first, exhilarating bolt of lightning. He’d gleefully watch as his oppressors huddled in their houses, scowling out of the windows, and he would be _safe_. Safe, for one more, blessed night.

But, despite everything, despite the power and happiness and freedom, there was… something. A regret, perhaps, a resentful anger that there had never _been_ someone to run too – even though he wasn’t afraid, that wasn’t the point. Although he refused to admit it, to others or even himself, there was a part of him that wished there had been someone there to hold him when the thunder rolled and the lightning glowed, to pull him close and stroke his hair and whisper in his ear that it would be all right. Someone to care whether he was afraid or not.

And so – the night of the first thunderstorm since America had come to live in his house, when the rain was lashing down and midnight fast approaching and he _finally_ managed to finish enough of his endless, unceasing work that he could go to bed without his thoughts keeping him up all night – when he walked past a half-closed door and heard the soft, badly-stifled sobs of honest fear, he didn’t walk past. Instead, he pushed the door open gently and lifted the trembling child from his hiding place under the blankets and cradled him in his arms, singing softly in his ear the words of the lullaby that no one had cared to sing for him.


End file.
